


The Space Between

by echoinautumn (maybetwice)



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Post-Canon, Post-War, Rebuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/echoinautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is not time for grief or hope or herself when there is work yet to be done. After the end of the world, Garnet takes on her solitary duties as queen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beltsquid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beltsquid/gifts).



> I don't know if this is the story I set out to write in the first place, but it went a way that I really liked more than more initial idea (more a starting point, really...), in that it gave me some time to explore the character realities of taking on the kind of responsibilities that Garnet does between the end of gameplay and the game's ending sequence. Happy Yuletide!

The simplest of solutions comes to her in the middle of the night that first month after the war ends, while the kingdoms are still waking from the remaining daze of war. Garnet sleeps very little, fitfully whenever she does, and wanders her empty palace with a crumbling sense of loneliness. The others, her beloved companions, stayed just a little while longer before moving forward with their lives. They, too, have things that need rebuilding, not just Garnet and her kingdom. It can be no matter to her, she reminds herself daily, the crushing weight of her crown on her head a steady reminder of the duties she must fulfill, whatever the cost to herself.

War reparations seemed inevitable so long before, but now the destruction is universal, everywhere. Envoys become advisors to her, aiding Garnet as she navigates her first administrative duties as queen, becoming her network to the other kingdoms and cities across the continent. It is no simple matter to arrange the reconstruction of a broken world, however she may wish to wade straight in without thought. There are tremendous resources they need, which they do not have, no one has. It’s why the solution that dawns on her that late night, standing on a balcony overlooking ruined gardens, is the perfect thing. 

Eidolons are not trusted by the people, not since they have seen the raw power of their destructive fury. Garnet tells herself, then all her advisors, that it would be a terrible waste to allow fear keep her people suffering (because, though they are not all from Alexandria, she still thinks of all the people of Gaia as _hers_ ). There is great power there waiting to be harnessed, and she uses it, a little at first, and then more and more, until Garnet’s eidolons are rebuilding Alexandria, then Burmecia. Eiko is in Lindblum, but hers are in Cleyra, and farther still. The people look on with mistrust and fear, and Garnet tries to hold to solitary faith in herself. 

After all, if she does not, who is there left who will?

*

They have many names for her.

In the palace, they call her by her ceremonial name, Alexandros XVII. Her quiet maid whispers _Majesty_ when she bows and sets untouched trays of food on the corner of Garnet’s desk, and her council murmurs _Grace_ at her when they wish to dissent with her opinions and impose their own. Behind their doors, the council calls her _child_ and _stubborn_. 

She has still more names on the streets. In Alexandria, they call her _Summoner Queen_ and _Sorceress_ and _Baptized-By-Trials_. In some of the taverns, they call her the _Queen Savior_ , and in others they curse her name with a litany of oaths that Garnet carries with her everywhere, wears like a cloak and considers always. Steiner would shield her from hearing those things, and Garnet believes that he would fight for her honor if he ever heard someone say anything cruel about her, but she tells him gently that she ought to know her critics better even than her allies if she is ever to be a great queen. 

After all, Garnet doesn’t care what they think of her or what they call her, so long as she does her duties to the very fullest of her power. She has submitted herself to this not because it is what is expected of her, but for the love she has for this world and its people; a love that will consume all that she is. Garnet realized this some months before, in the earliest days of reconstruction, when the first weeks of summoning sapped all her energy from her, leaving her weak and so, so much work left to be done. It is not because it is expected, but because Queen Alexandros XVII is who she has become. 

The people are free to whisper, to give her whatever name they like ( _Witch Queen_ , _Marked-By-Thunder_ , _Outlander_ ), so long as none of them ever die at the hands of the sort of evil that stripped her of everything she has loved and left this world bare. For as long as the threat of that evil creeps among the roots of the world, Garnet will become whatever the people of Gaia need, if only to protect them.

In late night, when she is alone, unvarnished and hidden from sight, when she whispers all her names to herself to remind herself of who she is, she keeps one for herself: the one they never call her, her very favorite, and dares to whisper it in a puff of late autumn breath.

Simply _Garnet_.

*

Winter comes hard that year. There scarcely seems as if there will be enough food, and Garnet refuses more meals than usual, as if that will feed the whole of her world alone. When she stands on the stone balcony overlooking the snow-blanketed city, Garnet feels as if she has transcended herself and become merely a vessel, as if there is nothing more that could happen to her until her duties are fulfilled.

For the first time in what feels like an age, Garnet feels empty, cold and worn and lonely, and something gasps to life inside her. It is something small and sad and needy, and she has been ignoring it since she closed off herself to make room for Alexandros XVII, the Queen with a terrible number of duties that she will never fulfill, if she had limitless energy and all the things that the people need from her. With a dull sense of surprise, Garnet realizes that it’s herself she’s been forgetting. Not merely her name, but her _self_ and all her grief and fears. 

Her fingers move, as if on their own, and brush the wetness from her cheeks. She cannot feel sorry for herself, there is not time for that.

Behind her, a door creaks open. Before she can fully straighten, a light, gloved hand rests on her back and Garnet looks up at Beatrix, who merely inclines her head, where she once might have knelt. 

“Steiner had to leave,” Beatrix explains quietly and removes her hand. “But it is very late, and very cold, and you have had neither food nor rest.” 

Garnet looks out to the city again and holds her breath for a moment, failing to compose the words in her head that might express the sense of loneliness that has hold of her. When she finds them, she exhales slowly and gestures to the darkness on the far horizon.

“Will it always be this way, General?”

She does not need to elaborate for Beatrix. The general looks thoughtfully past Garnet’s hand and seems to consider the question seriously for a very long time before speaking. Garnet might have known. Where Steiner might have been rash with an answer, quick to reassure her, Beatrix is more realistic in her assessments. 

“No,” she finally answers. “Nothing ever stays the same and lasts forever. Not war, and not peace, and not this.” 

_This_ is the time between war and peace, Garnet knows, and she bows her head. She barely smiles, merely a phantom of a smile shadowed on her face, but Beatrix looks duly heartened. 

“It will not have to be this way forever, my lady.” 

Before she leaves, some time later, Garnet stops her for a moment, wanting to ask if anyone else will come back, but she loses the will for it, too afraid that Beatrix’s realism will speak what Garnet already fears: that she is grieving because she knows that lives move on and grow over old hurts, and she may never see her once-companions again.

*

And so, in that manner, winter passes to spring. No word comes, but the flowers grow anew where destruction had been. Soon, it will have been a year, and Garnet will have forgotten some of the darker moments from the war, and even the despair of this, the prolonged twilight of a previous era that does not seem to pass with any haste until it is already gone.

It is not happiness that has settled over the world, nor would Garnet be foolish enough to mistake it for that feeling. But with the worst behind, it is the start of something promising that lingers on the fresh spring air, which blows away the lingering snow-and-smoke scents of winter.

It cannot stay this way forever, Garnet thinks as she steps away from the window of her study and back to the ceaseless work that waits for her. But one day, perhaps she will miss it the way she misses the times before.


End file.
